I will venture that sometimes writers write the apocalyptically good sex scene because of what Russell identifies: the lazy presumption (unless it is written by Anais Nin) that the character is a thin flirt of a disguise for the writer.

The reputation of being a flirt is greatly to be dreaded by young ladies, for their company soon becomes annoying to men of sense; while those who possess similar tastes will, to be sure, laugh, dance and sing with them, to their hearts 'content, but will never ask them to be admitted to a nearer and dearer companionship.

It was too bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and calculating than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony.

She has never come near me since, and I have changed my opinion of her: a beguiling minx, with little taste or judgment, and more than her share of feminine lightness and caprice; an unconscionable flirt, that is all she is.

She was not in any sense what could be called a flirt, or a girl who planned, out of a set purpose, to make a conquest or use her powers of attractiveness to disturb the peace of her young men acquaintances.

Open here I flung a shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.Not the least obeisance made he; not an minute stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door - Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door - Perched and sat and nothing more.- Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Raven'.